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Dikșă: Consecration
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fervent and enlightened Jaina. Its roots are embedded in a faith in the dharma that is both stable and unshakeable; however, the degrees of awareness of this deep impulse vary and only a small number responds fully to this calling. 10
It is not easy to analyse the different motives that may inspire a candidate. The young widows, who, even quite recently, tended to decide in favour of the state of vairāgiņi found themselves already, because of their widowhood, in a state of renunciation, but in one which lacked a goal, while the renunciation practised in the ascetic life, though humanly speaking far more radical, offered them an ideal to pursue. Certain of their number say that their widowed state helped them to realise the frailty of human relationships, that it freed them from family bonds. For them a veil was listed and they are now embarked on a surc path.
Frequently, whether in the case of girls, widows or young married women, the presence in the neighborhood of a group of sādhvis and their teachings provided the incentive to join them. Sometimes it was the words of some muni which struck them. For others, it was a sādhvi relative whom they admired and followed or perhaps a brother or cousin muni who fired their imagination. These meetings, examples or words became the dertermining factors, helping them to, awake to the fact that the life of this world is full of suffering, struggles and anguish and that its joys are transitory. As a result, the state of renunciation appeared the loftier, because it disengages the soul from worldly attachments and is advancing towards final Liberation.
At the beginning the motives are not always purely spiritual. For example, certain girls choose this state because, for family or financial reasons, they have scarcely any chance of getting married. Others are attracted because they desire to study. This does not mean that their intention is dishonourable and that they will not in the course of their training discover the more purely spiritual motives.
10 A study of several biographies is revealing in this regard.
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